1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a security control system and method of operation of such a security control system. Illustrative embodiments of the invention relate to a security system comprising video cameras, the control system, and monitors for displaying images received by the cameras.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Security CCTV systems are now finding widespread use in monitoring shopping centres, town centres, and commercial and industrial buildings.
The size of these systems may vary from one or two video sources for small retail outlets, petrol stations etc., to large town centre installations which may have greater than a hundred video sources with hundreds of alarm input signals.
In large installations, a great deal of security information is provided to the operator for evaluation. Such large security systems are typically managed by a system controller which can: provide access to a large number of video sources (for example a hundred video sources) and many hundreds of alarm signals; allow control of pan and tilt heads for each camera; provide some control panels (e.g. ten or fewer control panels) for enabling an operator to interact with the system; and present video information on some (e.g. thirty or more) video monitors.
Managing this information to ensure that any incident may be efficiently and effectively identified, dealt with and recorded for evidential purposes can be very operator intensive.
To improve the efficiency of the monitoring process, large security sites are often partitioned or broken down into areas, with one operator assigned responsibility for monitoring each area.
System controllers may provide the facilities to effectively partition an installation into a number of (e.g. eight) fully functioning sub-systems. Each sub-system has a control interface, a number of video monitors, and access to a sub-set of the video sources and alarm information from the complete installation.
The monitors are watched by operators who use the control panels, e.g. in response to alarms, to control the views presented by the cameras in order to determine the cause of an alarm. Even by assigning one operator to each partition of an installation, an event may trigger many alarms and present the operator with an overwhelming amount of alarm and video information.
Consider by way of example a CCTV security system having 128 video sources, e.g. cameras, and 32 video display monitors, and being able to support up to 768 individual alarm signal inputs.
The problem with such a large number of video sources and video display monitors is that it becomes very difficult for security operators to effectively monitor all of the video information provided. Further, since there are potentially a large number of alarm signals that can be generated, then there is a need for techniques which will enable those large number of alarm inputs to be effectively managed. Even if a system could be provided which associated particular alarm signals with particular video images, it is still clear that if a large number of alarms are detected by the system, then a great deal of video information may be presented to the operator. Further, this video information may be dispersed over a large number of video display monitors, since different display monitors will typically be arranged to display images from particular video sources.
It is important that the operator must review all of the information provided to ensure that effective action is taken in response to any alarm condition(s). Particularly in large security systems having a large number of video sources and video display monitors, it is possible that some important information may be missed due to the operator having to review information dispersed over a large number of display monitors.
It is hence an object of the present invention to provide a security control system which processes the images associated with active alarm signals in a manner which facilitates a more effective analysis of the information generated by the security control system as a result of those alarm signals.